You Said I Was Your Favorite (A Lancaster Prep Novel)

The next day I do my best to keep my cool and act normal around everyone but it’s fucking tough. I’m not in the mood for any type of interaction with anyone, and what makes it worse? The one person I’m trying my damnedest to forget seems to have already forgotten me.

Daisy.

The moment I stormed into the admin building, Daisy had her back to me, completely ignoring me. She didn’t even look in my direction when Vivian called out my name, or when I snapped at Vivian in return and she asked what crawled up my rear?

Direct quote. Stupid quote. I just stared at her without saying a word, and Vivian waved her hand toward my favorite office, sending me in to perform my favorite task.

No eye contact from Daisy, no nothing. I stapled papers so hard, I think I broke the fucking stapler, but I didn’t give a damn.

In the classes we share, she wouldn’t look at me. During lunch, she was nowhere near the dining hall.

Where the hell did she go?

I wandered around outside, my gaze constantly searching for her despite my animosity toward her. Despite the burning in my gut and the way I clenched my fists every time I thought about her. I never saw her blonde head when I was outside. Hell, I even went to the library early since I spend sixth period in there, but she wasn’t hiding among the stacks either.

I could almost believe she’s purposely avoiding me and it’s driving me out of my mind.

My last class of the day is statistics and it’s my least favorite. I hate the classroom. It’s old and musty and I can imagine one of my dead relatives going here back in the early nineteen hundreds, mouthing off and acting like he owns the school.

Just like me.

This period though, instead of glowering and daring anyone to even look at me, I keep my gaze fixed on the desk, listening to Mrs. Nelson talk about meaningless topics. I don’t have the energy to listen, to pay attention, to work on the sample problems she mentions.

God, I hate statistics. Math. All of it.

The day is dark and I swear it’s only because I haven’t looked into Daisy’s eyes. Crazy, right? My mood is for shit and I wonder if seeing her, hearing her voice—fuck, getting her to actually acknowledge me—will make me feel better. She’s bright and pretty, a flower shining in the sun and I feel like I need some of that brightness shining on me.

The hair and the face and the smile and the sunny disposition, it all works for her. While that is some corny shit and I don’t normally think like that at all, but for some reason, I can’t shake her.

I’m desperate to shake her.

I tell myself it’s just a passing phase. I’ll forget all about her by the weekend. If I’m lucky enough, I’ll wake up tomorrow not thinking about her at all and when I see her during first period maybe I’ll think, oh yeah. There’s Daisy.

Big deal.

And then again, maybe not. Because it doesn’t feel like I’m going to shake her any time soon. I’m…consumed.

Obsessed.

Pissed about it too.

I normally like girls who are dark-haired and mysterious. Girls who play it cool and don’t fawn all over me—with the exception of Cadence, who makes me feel like a rock star with the way she pays far too much attention to me. Her fangirl behavior is obnoxious.

Girls who don’t consider me anything special are usually more my speed because they’re wealthy too and the money part doesn’t impress them. Yes, I’m a Lancaster and richer than all the rest, but they come from wealth and prestige as well, and while a lot of them have been trained to be husband hunters, they don’t push too hard or make too big of a deal about who I am. They’re hoping I choose them, and none of them, not a single one of them is who I want to choose.

A ragged sigh leaves me and I scrub my hand over my face, hating how twisted my gut is. I can’t eat. I can’t focus. I can’t sleep for shit.

Girls with money should be the ones that interest me but that will never be Daisy because she’s broke as a joke and comes from her groundskeeper father. And her dead mother.

What happened to her anyway? Why did she die? How? When did it happen? Is that why Daisy keeps to herself? She may think she’s friendless and that none of us like her but I see how she is. How she puts up that wall and doesn’t let anyone penetrate it.

I want to. God help me, I want to even though I know it’s a giant mistake and she’s the last girl I should be interested in.

“Open up your textbooks to page twenty-six,” Mrs. Nelson announces, and I hear the shuffle of books opening, pages being turned. “That includes you too, Mr. Lancaster.”

Ah, called out. I appreciate Nelson’s imaginary balls. Most of the staff have been afraid to speak to me today and I appreciate her acting like I’m just another student. When I look up, I catch her watching me, slowly shaking her head, and I flash her a rueful smile before I duck down, reaching for my backpack.

Pausing when I spot a book sitting in the open slot beneath my desk.

I reach inside and pull it closer, recognizing the cover immediately. This is Daisy’s book. The one she was reading at lunch. I bet she has this class during sixth period, and for whatever reason, she left her book behind.

Huh.

“Arch.” Mrs. Nelson’s sharp tone causes my head to snap up. “Your textbook, please?”

“Sorry,” I mutter, reaching for my backpack and pulling out the math textbook, setting it on my desk and opening it to page twenty-six like she asked.

She goes over the lesson and then asks us to work on some problems, which I do in what feels like two minutes flat, even though she lectured for at least ten minutes and I never listened to a single word she said.

All the while I’m working on the configurations, I think of Daisy’s book in the desk, calling my name.

The moment I finish the assignment, I’m reaching for the book, cracking it open at the spot where she placed a flower-themed bookmark. Frowning, I notice there a few sentences underlined. There are even hearts drawn on the page, around the dude’s—Aaron—name.

Huh. That’s weird. She doesn’t seem like the type to doodle on the inside of a book. I’d guess she’d believe that was wrong, messing up a book’s interior.

I read the sentences she underlined, noting how romantic the words are.

He looks at me as if I’m the only thing he sees and my heart swells with a foreign emotion. I think this is what it feels like to be…

Loved.

But maybe I’m mistaken.

I flip through the book, noting that it’s heavily annotated only about a third of the way in.

“Have you finished your assignment, Arch?”

I glance up to find Mrs. Nelson smiling down at me, her eyes sparkling with amusement when she notices the book in my hands. I snap it shut and grab the lined piece of paper I used to complete the problems, holding it out toward her.

She takes it from me and glances over my work, nodding slowly. “Looks like you don’t have any difficulty with this.”

“Nope.”

“I suppose I should let you get back to your reading then.”

Shit. “It’s not my book.”

“I know.” When I meet her gaze, she explains further, “It’s Daisy Albright’s. She was reading it earlier and must’ve left it behind.”

Confirmation that I didn’t really need.

“Why don’t you give it to me and I can make sure she’ll get it tomorrow.” Mrs. Nelson holds out her hand and I clutch the book tighter, not about to let it go.

“I can give it to her. I’ll see her after class.” I say the words with utter confidence. As if it’s perfectly normal that I’ll meet up with Daisy when Nelson knows—everybody knows—the two of us don’t socialize.

At all.

Nelson frowns, suspicion filling her eyes. Like she’s onto my scheme. “You will?”

Nodding, I sit up straighter, resting my forearms on top of the book. “I’ve got it handled.”

“If you say so.” Her voice is full of doubt, but she walks away, stopping at a desk to help someone else.

Exhaling loudly, I reach for the pack of Post-it notes I keep in my backpack, grabbing my pencil and scrawling a few words across it before I tear it off and attach it to the inside of the book, placing it right on the bookmark.

Smiling, I close the book and deposit it back into the desk slot, wondering if she’ll answer me.

She better.